Some Negros officials hailed the lifting of Executive Order 464 by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday as a positive move in the search for truth, while others said the sincerity of the move remains to be seen.

Calls for the president’s resignation have mounted at rallies in Bacolod City and other parts of the country amid corruption charges involving the National Broadband Network deal wherein her husband, Mike Arroyo, has been linked.

However, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines in a pastoral letter on Feb. 26 stopped short of calling for her resignation but called for the abolition of Executive Order 464 “so that those who might have knowledge of any corruption in government may be free to testify before the appropriate investigating bodies.”

The bishops asked the President to allow her subordinates to reveal any corrupt acts, particularly on the NBN deal no matter who is involved.

Arroyo, in revoking Executive Order No. 464, instructed executive officials to abide by the Constitution and existing laws and jurisprudence when invited to attend congressional inquiries.

“Effective immediately, I am revoking Executive Order 464. Executive officials may no longer invoke E.O. 464 to excuse non-attendance from legislative inquiries,” the President said.

Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio Bunye said the President made the announcement during the special meeting yesterday afternoon with the Malacañang legal team and members of influential religious groups, majority of them coming from the CBCP.

“No Cabinet members from hereon can invoke E.O. 464,” Bunye said in a Malacañang press statement.

He added that Commission on Higher Education Chairman Romulo Neri who invoked E.O. 464 should also abide by the ruling once the Supreme Court decides on his pending case on the issue.

The Senate has been pressing Neri to testify on the NBN deal at its ongoing inquiry.

Bunye said the President decided to revoke E.O. 464 to end all speculations and disparity created by the Senate probe on the cancelled NBN deal.

‘SHE’S LISTENING’

Negros Occidental Acting Governor Isidro Zayco said the president by lifting E.O. 464 shows that she is listening to the clamor of the people.

Allowing Cabinet men to appear before congressional inquiries will help ease the doubts and suspicions of the people, he said.

Manapla Mayor Manuel Escalante, president of the Negros Association of Chief Executives, said the lifting of E.O. 464 is good for everybody so we can find out the truth.

 Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra, who has called for the resignation of the president had a more cautious response. He said let us wait to see the sincerity of the president’s revocation of E.O. 464.

Bayan Negros secretary general Felipe Levy Gelle, on the other hand, said “Bayan expects nothing to change, the cover up will continue.”

Only the ouster of Arroyo would allow independent and fair investigations and prosecution, Gelle said.

But Bunye said “The President, like anybody else, is after truth. The President is after justice, the President’s mission is for the people. And she believes that it is in the best interest of everybody to heal our present conflict with regards to the legislature so she issued the (revocation) order effective immediately.”

PROTESTS STILL ON

Gelle said militant groups will hold protest actions at the doorsteps of   public officials in Negros who display “shameless puppetry” to Arroyo.

“In the next few days, protest actions will be held in houses of the puppets of Arroyo as a contribution to the intensifying protest in Bacolod and in Negros Occidental,” he said in a press statement.

He also said some officials are even involved in the regime’s worst cases of corruptions.

At the same time, Gelle cited Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella’s being linked to the administration’s alleged fertilizer scam.

To date, Puentevella has not accounted for the P8 million fertilizer fund given to him and no one those involved in the corruption were prosecuted, Gelle claimed.

Puentevella could not be reached for comment yesterday but he has repeatedly denied in the past involvement in any anomaly in the fertilizer fund.

LOZADA VISIT

Meanwhile, a DAILY STAR source said the announced visit on national TV of Senate witness, Rodolfo Lozada, to Bacolod on March 14 is unconfirmed.

That is because he may speak at a big rally also set in Manila on March 14, the source said.*CPG

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